April 30, 2008
~ planning a trip ~
Not to be a negative nelly, but it's easy to lose the motivation for blogging when I get no love for my amazing posts. Honestly, people, where's the love?!?
What's news in my world?
Some of you may know about Josh's major dental procedure last week. Poor guy, hasn't been feeling well (for various reasons) for almost a month, and he tops it off with teeth extractions and a root canal. *shudder* At any rate, we've been watching a lot of movies lately. Last week we saw Forbidden Kingdom which I would not recommend, mainly because of the awkward teenager cast to play the awkward teenager. blech. Then we saw Jumper at the dollar theater which was decently entertaining but I would not necessarily give a thumbs up.
In the way of school, praise the little baby jesus that this semester's almost over. I've been spending some time at the library working on a final project which I couldn't care less about. This entire semester has been a complete waste of time and I could be bitter about the BS that I've subjected myself to, but instead I've decided to abandon all feeling on the matter and just get through it.
Since you all have expressed such an abundance of interest in my knitting projects, my update there is that I'm almost finished with another project. I've been a busy bee working on something that I'm hoping to get a lot of use from this summer. I'd tell you all what it is, but I think I'll keep you on pins and needles of anticipation before unveiling my amazing creation.
In the way of cycling activities, they have been taking place mostly at the gym instead of outside. The weather has not been cooperating in the way that I would like it, so poop on that! This weekend, I did go on a lovely mountain bike ride and enjoyed the wind in my face and my heart racing. I found myself musing once again at how much I like my new bike, and what a perfect fit for me it is. I've been looking at the schedules for upcoming mountain bike races pretty regularly, trying to decide which one to enter next.
As you all know, my birthday is coming up in about a month and I've decided to take myself on a trip to celebrate. What's mildly amusing is that, because plane ticket prices are a little on the expensive end these days, I've been doing an extensive search of ticket prices to various cities in the region. Yesterday, during my daily internet browsing, I discovered that Dooce will give a reading of her book in Salt Lake City on my birthday! And for a moment, I actually considered going down there for the reading and to get a signed copy of the book. Obviously, I discarded that thought almost before I had it - - after all, toasting one's birthday should involve celebratory libations, which is facilitated by being somewhere that does not have odd liquor laws. As of this writing, I'm pretty close to confirming my plane ticket and hotel. The purpose of the trip is not so much a 'vacation' but rather to live it up and have a crap ton of fun. I'm hoping to spend my trip walking around, having good coffee, shopping, hiking, going to musical concerts, dipping my toes in the ocean, and eating seafood.
April 21, 2008
~ iron loaf ~
One of the many virtues of the internet is its facilitation for an individual (someone with absolutely no medical training or expertise) to engage in self-diagnosis of one illness or another. Such was the case this weekend, when I diagnosed myself with anemia, though it's possible that I simply was pooped after my bike race. At any rate, I had been feeling fine and good until about last Thursday when I suddenly, and rather inexplicably, bonked. It was so bad that I actually had to take off Friday afternoon from work - - my symptoms included total loss of appetite (which for me means that something must be REALLY wrong) and extreme fatigue and lethargy (not just, "oh, I don't have a lot of energy," but "oh lord, just sitting here doing nothing is so taxing that I think I may have to fall onto the floor because it's not possible for me to hold up my own weight"). It pretty much ruined my entire weekend because even though the sun was shining and I was spending the time relaxing and doing things that would normally give me a lot of joy (ie, having coffee and treats with Josh, watching a movie, and knitting), there was no joy in mudville because all of these activities involved me sitting in an upright position, and I didn't have the strength for sitting.
At sometime during Saturday afternoon, I diagnosed myself with anemia and determined that the best treatment regimen would be to eat a lot of red meat. For dinner, I had a large portion of grass fed organic beef and it seemed to be exactly what the "doctor" ordered (at least, despite having no appetite, I was able to wolf it down).
My main difficulty with meat, however, is that I don't know much about how to cook it. Growing up, my exposure to meat was enough to make me give up eating it altogether. Not only did I not approve of the American Meat Industry, but it was always prepared in a manner that either tasted flavorless or really grossed me out. Since being adult enough to prepare my own meals, I have relied heavily on the Moosewood style of vegetarian cooking. Yum! In the past few years, however, I have slowly rediscovered my carnivorous side - - not only for nutrition but also for taste, and have begun pumping my dollars into the local organic ranchers. The only problem with becoming a carnivore (or rather, an omnivore) after years of vegetarianism is that my plethora of vegetarian cookbooks offer no insight into the preparation of meat. Hence, there have been disappointments.
On Saturday, the process of wolfing down a large quantity of red meat took place at Josh's residence while watching an action film. When I arrived, Josh and Eric were enjoying Iron Chef, which I proceeded to enjoy with them while the food was cooking. And, like so many before me, I found it inspiring. And so, I decided right then and there that it was high time for me to develop some meat-preparation skillz. The timing was ripe, as I happened to have a gift card to the ginormous book store, to which I took my person on Sunday to select my very first non-vegetarian cookbook. I spent over an hour on Sunday spilling over cookbooks and I finally chose this one because it contained recipes for meat, meat, poultry, seafood, and more meat. And, it has lots of photos! I've always wanted to be a good person and feel satisfied by all of my veggie cookbooks that are completely devoid of photos, but at the end of the day, I'm a visual person and photos of amazing looking dishes inspire me to make those dishes.
I don't know if this hunk-o-meat looks appetizing to anyone, but it resembles the photo remarkably well! I'm calling it "Iron Loaf" - - not only because it's an Iron Chef recipe, but also because it's full of iron (which is essential for someone like me, suffering from anemia!). I made two modifications to the recipe: (1) utilized buffalo instead of beef, and (2) subsituted brie for one of the cheeses that I was unable to find at any of the three stores that I went to. Yet, this is unlike any meatloaf I have ever before sampled. It contains the following ingredients: buffalo, pork, eggs, bread crumbs, rosemary, salt, pepper, spinach, carrots, brie, romano, and prosciutto. It is delicious! And, as I can attest right at this very moment, it reheats very well.
Incidentally, I woke up this morning with my anemia completely cured! I was able to get up on time, I feel awake and energized - - I feel absolutely wonderful, in fact. Someone had actually suggested that, rather than suffering from anemia, I was suffering from post-bike race bonk. This person, a runner racer, said that the post-race bonk usually hits six days after the race. Whatever it was, it's gone and my Iron Loaf leftovers are great.
April 16, 2008
~ Cozy Sweater ~
I finished my Cozy V-Neck Sweater, from Fitted Knits, over the weekend. To spice up the ridiculous amount of k2p2 ribbing, I added some cabling from the Wheat Ear Cable Yoke. I also knat the neck much lower and wider than the pattern called for, in addition to leaving that gap in the front of the neck (which is similar to other 'fitted knits'). The sweater fits very well and I like it a lot. The yarn is Berocco Ultra Alpaca which is a bit on the itchy side, but quite lovely. I have worn the sweater twice since finishing it and am shocked, SHOCKED! by how much it pills. The Jasper pills excessively, but this yarn, OH MY!, after two wears there were these ginormous accumulations of fuzz along the side. Not impressed!
April 14, 2008
~ passing lots of mofos ~
The Barking Spider race was this weekend. Despite not training as much as I had wanted to, I did pretty well. My race time was 58 minutes, which I felt really good about, especially if you consider that my time was a mere six minutes behind the time of the man who won. Out of about 50 beginners, I came in 9th and was the first female to cross the finish. The results of the race are posted here. Below is a photo of me crossing the finish line, taking first place in my category.
I had actually become quite nervous about the race. I didn't sleep at all the night before and I had lost all of my appetite the morning of the race. The grumbly in my tumbly was unbearable. And then, right when I gathered at the starting line, it was 30 seconds to go, and I suddenly had a very strong urge to pee! Once the race was on and I was riding my bike, trying to navigate myself around all of the mofos in my way, everything felt really good. Below is a photo of me right after we started the race (I'm on the right in the blue jersey, white helmet).
My first strategy once the race started was to quickly get ahead of as many people (aka, "mofos") as I could. Somehow, I wasn't paying attention when I gathered at the starting line, and I ended up way in the back, and I wanted to make sure that I could pass the mofos while I had a good opportunity. Otherwise, I was concerned that some parts of the race would not be conducive to passing the mofos. Below is a photo of me in the process of passing a mofo (behind me, all of the mofos I had managed to pass right at the outset).
Perhaps by now it should be obvious that some kind of competitive beast managed to possess me for the duration of the race, despite my assurances that I am not a competitive person. A strange experience, I must say.
So, the course has lots of ups and downs - - and I tended to shine on the climbs, where everyone else seemed to really slow down. At every hill, there would be a long line of bikers huffing and puffing their way up - - and for me, I found that to be a grand opportunity to pass the lot of them. On the one hand, I have a strength to weight ratio working in my favor, on the other hand, I'm just a good climber. Over the years, Josh has taught me a lot of techniques for climbing that I gathered many of the other racers did not have - - such as, on an extended climb, recovering during the least strenuous point of the pedal stroke.
Of course, as gravity is working in my favor on the climbs, it works against me on the downhills. I passed and repassed a few of the same people over and over. On a number of occasions, there would be a downhill right after I passed someone (say, a dude who weighs 50 pounds more than I) and he would zoom past me going down, and then I would pass him a minute later going up. Eventually, a form of comradery was established and a very brief humorous salutation was exchanged.
About halfway through the course, there was an extended climb with a decently strong headwind, and a very long line of bikers. It was during this climb that I located a dude who was going at a good pace, and so I tucked myself behind him and drafted off of him so that I could get a nice recovery in. He was passing a lot of people, and I was right behind him, passing them. Many of the people that we passed, by this point, were racers in the sport class (who had started a few minutes before us beginners) that we had caught up to. After a while, I passed the dude I was drafting off of, and then he passed me on the downhill, and I believe that he was one of the 8 dudes to finish before me.
When I went through the finish line, I was very excited to learn of my standing in the race. I had a bit of a spectator grouping - - Josh, Elizabeth, and Laura were on hand to watch my first race! We partook of several celebratory beers after I finished and it was a lot of fun. We waited several hours until the awards ceremony, where I scored a water bottle and a huge jersey for a team that I'm not on (how dumb is that?@? - - I'm not going to wear a jersey that's way too big for me for a local team that I don't ride with). Afterwards, we made our way to a Mexican restaurant in Kuna and had enchiladas. Anyway, here's the link to my flickr deal - - you'll note the photo of the nasty sunburn I got on my calves...didn't think to apply sunscreen there.
April 9, 2008
~ western person ~
I've been wanting to direct some of your attention to a radio program that I had the opportunity to listen to on the drive home from McCall last week. It was on the local radio program, New Horizons and it was an interview with Tim Egan, a columnist for the New York Times who apparently writes about life in the West - - and here is the link to the broadcast. Of course, while I thought that what he had to say about blogs was completely STUPID (nyuck, nyuck), I experienced a huge 'aha!' during the dialogue about public land and I've been thinking a lot about it since then.
Any discussion of the West, public land, and why a person lives where they live, resonates strongly with me. I would probably be inclined to articulate myself in extensive detail on this subject, if I did not have a previous engagment with a set of pedals.
April 8, 2008
~ Qapla'! ~
Woke up to snow on the ground this morning. After work today, I'm going to zip off to the Owyhees to ride the race course once more before the big day (which is this weekend). Hopefully, it won't be snowing during my ride. I'm going to time myself to ascertain whether I'm in the running to compete with the racers in my category from last year. I haven't been training nearly as much as I had hoped. I have, at least, been putting in some long spin sessions at the gym, but it's not the same.
I had my incredibly tedious budget class last night. There seems to be general consensus that this is a truely torturously boring class. Ah well, it'll be over soon enough.
I seem to have simmer-downed a bit on the knitting end. You may have noted that, for some time, I was going bananas over knitting. Right now, I'm finishing up a sleeve on a seemless v-neck cardigan. I'm trying to decide if I should re-knit a section of the lower body (it may be too tight). I haven't picked up Iceland in about a week.
In the way of going bananas, I have been shopping without dropping! Two weekends ago, I purchased three pairs of discounted high-end jeans. I love them. One pair is a nicely-fitting pair of Joe's, another is an awesome pair of Audrey Hepburn-ish Hudson's, and another J-Brand grey skinnies. I bought all of them at less than the full cost of one pair. Which I felt pretty good about...in fact, Qapla'! In the way of shoes, I'm getting to the point of needing to throw away several pairs of shoes that I have worn the soles away. Also, except for the snow, I'm certain that flip flop weather is just around the corner and I have been eagerly searching for a pair of flops. As I do an incredible amount of walking, I have decided that I am the sort of person who absolutely must have high quality ergo footwear. This weekend, I splurged on a pair of Ugg Tasmina's which are the embodiment of comfortable glory! The salesperson swore to me that these flops will "last forever" even after I tried to explain to her exactly how much walking I do on an average summer day. Normally, I wear through about two or three pairs of cheapo flops during a single summer...so we'll see how the Uggs last. Even if they can get me through the whole summer, they're worth it.
April 3, 2008
~ happy shiny ~
Had to go up to McCall this week for work. I don't believe I've ever been here in the winter before - - quite stunning, if one enjoys glorious scenery. Above, is Payette Lake, all snowed over. Today, I had the opportunity to venture out on an extended walk along the lake and through the neighborhoods. I've uploaded some photos onto my flickr deal. It's pretty amazing how much snow is still up here. All of the rooftops have about four tons of snow weight, and the icicles!
The only weird thing is having to spend a few days living in a hotel. Of course, I haven't slept hardly at all, because I don't sleep in hotel rooms. This particular hotel, however, has a lovely supply of free soaps and lotions. I'm spending the evening wolfing down some deli items I procured from the local grocier, watching a film, playing on the free wireless internet, and drinking some beer from a can (because I don't own a bottle opener). I may even take a bath in my jacuzzi tub.
This past weekend was lovely. Despite the chill in the air, Saturday was gloriously sunny. Josh and I went on a big cruiser bicycle ride down the Greenbelt, taking photos of stuff. We also went on a big walk through the neighborhoods.
